Looking ahead, looking back.
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Wow, what a year!  
 
After a lengthy process, we were absolutely thrilled to receive finished copies of our first book, The Flying North, in late October. We are indebted to Jean Potter's children, Sandy and Michael Chelnov, for allowing us to republish this Alaska classic, to Courtenay Birdsall Clifford for the striking cover art, and to Sarah Asper-Smith for her brilliance in book design.
 
Our travels this fall allowed us to see old friends and make new ones and continue the discussion about authentic Alaska and its portrayal in art and literature. 
 
And, a very special thank you to all of you. We are so grateful for your support of our endeavors and for staying in touch.
 
Katrina Woolford Pearson and Colleen Mondor,
The inspiration of Jean Potter

Jean Potter first traveled to Alaska to cover the war effort as a researcher for Fortune magazine. After writing a book, Alaska Under Arms, she made the decision to end her relationship with the magazine and set out on her own to gain a publishing contract for a title on a very different subject. Her advance in hand, she departed Seattle in 1943 aboard a ship with only two other women, one of them a mail order bride and the other a prostitute. Jean Potter was something else entirely however: a young writer determined to share the story of Alaskan aviation with the world.

 

Over the next eighteen months, Jean traveled from the Aleutian Islands to Nome to Barrow, flying with a host of pilots. She spent time with Joe Crosson, Noel and Sig Wien, Bob Reeve, and Jack Jefford. She learned about the lives and deaths of Ben Eielson and Harold Gillam and, most importantly, everywhere she went, she talked to Alaskans about what aviation meant to them. At a desk at UAF, as she poured over old newspapers and dug through boxes of photos, Jean slowly put together a history of aircraft and men who transformed the territory. By 1945, after meeting and obtaining the editing assistance of Dashiell Hammet, The Flying North was published and the country finally learned the full story of "the flyingest people under the American flag." 

 

For Jean however, the best part of her Alaskan adventure would be what few people ever knew. In Teller, a small village just outside of Nome, she met a Russian-born American soldier who was serving as a translator with the Lend-Lease program. Anatole Chelnov befriended her on the Seward Peninsula and later found her in Fairbanks. After the war he showed up at her door in New York City and the couple soon married and embarked on a life that took them to destinations around the world. Alaska thus became a professional and personal highlight in the life of  a former girl reporter who was determined enough to go to the top of the world in pursuit of the story she knew she had to tell.

Our Alaska...



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"And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been"
-Rainer Marie Rilke
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410 West Tenth St.  Juneau, AK 99801 - 907.321.0230